History

Team handball is the second most popular sport in Europe (behind soccer), but is little known in North America. Its very name is confusing even to an American who knows quite a bit about sports.

The modern game actually grew out of three sports that were developed, independently, in three different European countries: The Czech hazena, the Danish handbold, and the German Torball.

All three were based on soccer, but essentially replaced the foot with the hand, so that the ball could be advanced by batting or throwing, rather than by kicking.

Hazena was being played by Slovak peoples as early as 1892; its rules were first codified in 1906, by a college professor. Handbold (the Danish word for handball) was developed in 1898 by a teacher, Holger Nielsen, as an alternative to soccer. In 1906, Nielsen revised the rules considerably and began organizing competitions outside the school at which he taught. Similarly, Torball was created in 1915 by a German gymnastics teacher, Max Heiden.

Professor Carl Schelenz of the Berlin Physical Education School in 1919 combined elements of handbold and Torball and adapted the soccer playing field for a new sport which he called handball (actually translating the Danish into German). Schelenz also borrowed from basketball, which was just becoming popular in Germany, to allow dribbling as a means of advancing the ball.

By 1925, the game had become fairly popular in other European countries.

That form of handball, designed to be played outdoors by teams of eleven players, was a full-fledged Olympic sport at the 1936 Berlin Games. The United States finished sixth and last in the competition.

Meanwhile, a different, indoor version of handball was being developed in the Scandinavian countries. Based largely on Danish handbold, this version had only seven on a side and was played in a considerably smaller area. The IAHF held the first seven-a-side world championships in 1938.

After World War II, the seven-player game gradually took over from the eleven-player version in Europe and also spread to other continents. World championship play, which had been ended by the war, began again in 1954 and handball was restored to the Olympic program in 1972. Competition for women's teams began in 1976.

Game play

Team handball has been described as a combination of soccer, basketball, and ice hockey (I liken it to water polo on land). The object is to score by throwing or hitting an inflated ball into a goal. A player can move the ball by dribbling it, as in basketball; by hitting it with any part of the body above the knee; or by throwing it. Only the goalkeeper is allowed to kick the ball. (This, of course, is the reverse of soccer, where all other players have to kick the ball and only the goalkeeper is allowed to handle and throw it.)

It's against the rules to carry the ball for more than three steps or to hold it for more than three seconds.

Shots on goal must be taken from outside the goal circle, an area in which only the goaltender is allowed. Minor violations of the rules allow a team a free throw, which is an unhindered pass to a teammate, usually from a spot near where the foul was committed. Penalty throws at the goal, awarded for more serious infractions, are taken from a mark just outside the goal circle.

The eleven-player game is played outdoors, on a field 90-100 meters (295-360 feet) long and 55-65 meters (180-213 feet) wide, with a goal 2.44 meters (8 feet) high and 7.32 meters (24 feet) wide. The goal circle is an arc 13 meters (43 feet) from the center of the goal.

Handball is played on a court forty meters long by twenty meters wide (40mx20m), with a dividing line in the middle and a goal in the center of either end. The goals are surrounded by a near-semicircular line that is generally six meters (6m) away from the goal. There is also a dashed near-semicircular line that is nine meters (9m) away from the goal.

Size and line pattern of a handball field.

After a goal has been scored, the team conceding the goal restarts the game. Their players move to the center line. Once a player has the ball under control the referee will blow his whistle to restart play. All players of the team which are restarting the play, must be behind the line on their own half, or else the restarting throw will have to be retaken.

Only the defending goalkeeper is allowed to step inside the six meter (6m) perimeter, though any player may attempt to catch and touch the ball in the air within it. If a player should find himself in contact inside the goal perimeter he must immediately take the most direct path out of it. Should a defender make contact with an attacker while in the goal perimeter, their team is penalized with a direct attempt at the goal, with only one attacker on the seven-meter line and the defending goalkeeper involved.

The ball is smaller than a football in order for the players to be able to hold and handle it with a single hand (though contact with both hands is perfectly allowed). Some American versions use a volleyball. It is transported by bouncing it between hands and floor — much as in basketball. A player may only hold the ball for three seconds and may only take three steps with the ball in hand. After taking three steps the player will have to make a dribble with one hand in order to continue moving forward, but if the ball is held in both hands after making a dribble and the player makes another dribble, a free throw will be given to the other team for a "double dribble". There are many unofficial rule variations; a common American version allows only a single step with the ball, after which the player must pass the ball to another teammate or shoot.

Ball movement and possession is similar to basketball. If the attacker commits an infraction, such as charging, the possession of the ball can be awarded to the defending team. Players may also cause the possession to be lost if they make more than three steps without dribbling or after stopping their dribble. However unlike basketball, the player may take three steps instead of two (pivoting on one foot is considered a step) .

A standard match duration consists of two periods of 30 minutes each during which each team may call one time-out. Normal league games are usually allowed to end in a draw, but in knockout tournaments, such as the of the Olympics, two extension periods of 5 minutes are played, and if they also end in a draw another two times 5 minutes has to be played. If each of these ends in a tie after the extra time the winner is determined by an individual shootout from the 7-meter line, where each team is given five shots. The rules of the shootout are similar to soccer shootouts, where, if a winner is not found within the first ten shots, the players return to the shooting, until one team has missed and the other scored. In two Olympic Finals of women's handball penalty shootout had to be used - both of them with Denmark participating (against Hungary in 1996 and South Korea in 2004); and both of them with Denmark as the winner.

The game is quite fast and includes body contact as the defenders try to stop the attackers from approaching the goal. Only frontal contact by the defenders is allowed; when a defender stops an attacker with his or her arms instead of his or her torso, the play is stopped and restarted from the spot of the infraction or on the nine meter line, with the attacking team in possession.

Penalties

Penalties are given to players, in progressive format, if the contact between the players is particularly rough the referees may award a nine-meter free throw to the attacking team, or if the infraction was during a clear scoring opportunity, a seven-meter penalty shot is given. In more extreme cases they give the defender a yellow card (warning), a 2-minute penalty, or a red card (permanent expulsion). For rough fouls they can also order two-minute expulsions and a red card expulsion without having to warn the player, if a player insults the referee - either by touching him with the intention to push or with verbal abuse, or if a player kicks or hits an opponent deliberately, the referee can expel the player. A team can only get three warnings (yellow cards); after that they will only be able to be penalized with 2-minute suspensions. One player can only get three 2-minute suspensions; after that he/she will be shown the red card, and cannot participate in that game anymore. A red card from three 2-minute suspensions does not result in a quarantine, such as a red card is a good thing. A Coach/Official can also be penalized progressively. When shown a 2-minute suspension a coach will have to pull out one of his players for two minutes - note: the players is not the one punished and can be substituted in again, because the main penalty is the team playing with a man less than the other.

After having lost the ball during an attack, the ball has to be laid down quickly or else the player not following this rule will face a 2-minute suspension. Also gesticulatingly or verbally rejecting to follow the referee's order, as well as arguing with his/her decisions, will normally result in a 2-minute suspension. Alternatively, if it is done in a very provocative way, a player can be given a 2-minute suspension if he/she does not walk straight out on the bench after been given a suspension, or if the referee deems the tempo deliberately slow.